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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A couple of short follow-ups, from our last two shows on Friday, we did that segment on misinformation about IUDs and birth control pills being spread on social media largely by cultural conservative interest groups. At the end of that segment, I invited listeners to text us on a hypothetical question, "What kind of public conversation would we be having about hormonal birth control if it had to be taken by men, rather than women?" I said I would read some of your responses on the air if we got interesting ones, and we did. Here are a few that people wrote in.

Listener writes, "As the old saw goes, if men could bear children, abortion would be a sacrament." Another listener writes, "Brian, you read my mind. If men were the ones responsible for birth control, there would be many more studies, many more answers, and better products." Another one, "My boyfriend can't wait for birth control, and refuses to believe there would be any side effects. I mock him for that based on how the pill has impacted me, but in the back of my mind, I believe him. There will probably be so much more time and money invested in protecting the poor baby men from any discomfort. Haha." Writes that listener.

Few people cited this line, spoken by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, very famous line from Veep, "If men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM." I know that was about abortion, not birth control, but then that was adapted by one of you to, "If men took birth control, it would be available at your local ATM."

Finally, a few of you pointed out a potential downside of men being the ones who have responsibility to take their birth control pills. One listener wrote, "As women, we would have to trust men who would tell us they are on hormonal birth control, as the person who would bear the responsibility of pregnancy, would I take the risk and trust what someone is telling me? As much as it's a burden for me to worry about birth control and suffer the myriad side effects, at least I know my ability to get pregnant is in my control."

Thanks for your responses. Imagining that alternative birth control universe folks, very informative, I'd say even if not the world we actually live in. That was the follow-up from Friday's show. Yesterday, we took calls from those of you who have already voted in the New York presidential primary. Early voting began on Saturday. The question was for Democrats, are you voting for Biden, or joining the uncommitted movement that's been going on in primaries around the country to protest Biden's handling of the war in Gaza?

We got thoughtful responses on both sides. It wasn't a poll, but the way you vote in New York is different than in other states' presidential primaries, and some people were confused by that. WNYC Senior Political Reporter Brigid Bergin is joining us for a few minutes now to explain how it works. Hey, Brigid, thanks for coming on.

Brigid Bergin: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote this up on Gothamist. First, can you lay out the basics? We are in the early voting period now. The Election Day itself is Tuesday, April 2nd, who can vote now, and how do they do it?

Brigid Bergin: As we often say, New York has a closed primary system. That means you can only participate in the primary if you are a registered party voter. There are primaries right now for the Republican and Democratic parties for their nominations for president and so only registered Republicans and registered Democrats can participate in the primary. Early voting runs through this coming Saturday.

Now, normally, it would go through the full weekend, but because of Easter, they set the date one day shorter. There are eight days of early voting as opposed to nine days of early voting this year, but the hours were extended, so the hours of early voting are the same, it's just one fewer day to go out and vote.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned that, unlike in some states, you have to be a registered Democrat to vote in a democratic primary, registered Republican to vote in the Republican primary. What if someone wants to change their party affiliation or register now in a party so they can vote? Is it too late?

Brigid Bergin: It is too late. The deadline to register to vote if you were a new voter was Saturday, which creates what some voting rights advocates call the Golden Day. You could actually register to vote and cast your ballot on the same day. But if you're already a registered voter, maybe in a different party or an unaffiliated voter, the deadline to change your party affiliation is actually February 14th, and so we are well past that deadline.

Brian Lehrer: Let's keep going with the brass tacks here. Where do people need to go to vote early and how should they confirm the location? It's often not the same as where you would vote on Election Day. Right?

Brigid Bergin: That is correct, Brian. Well, a little New York City exceptionalism. If you are a voter here in New York City, you are assigned to a specific early voting site, and it's probably not the same spot where you go to vote on your Election Day. It's a good idea to check with the New York City Board of Elections. That's vote.nyc. They have a very easy-to-use pull site locator right smack on the homepage.

Now, if you're listening and you're outside of the five boroughs, well, you have county-wide early voting sites. Again, you can either go to the state board of elections or your county board of elections for that information, but a little bit more flexibility if you're outside of the five boroughs.

Brian Lehrer: What will Democrats and Republicans see on their presidential primary ballots? Of course, there's a widespread presumption now that Biden and Trump are already the nominees.

Brigid Bergin: That is correct. However, once you make the ballot in New York, there's no coming off unless there's a challenge, for some reason to the legitimacy of your signatures or otherwise. Republicans will see Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley, along with former President Donald Trump on their ballots, even though only Trump still has a active presidential campaign, and Democrats will see President Joe Biden, Marianne Williamson, and Dean Phillips on their ballot.

Now, they will also see a list of delegates to the Democratic National Convention, all of whom are pledged to Biden. That's the major difference between the two ballots. As you might notice in that, there is no write-in option. For those folks who are interested in expressing a protest vote in this particular primary, it's not going to work the same way it works in other states.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, you can't write in a candidate, and you can't vote uncommitted, neither of those, right?

Brigid Bergin: Neither of those options are available. The only way to register a protest vote in this particular election is to submit a blank ballot. That would basically mean you would either-- if it's an absentee ballot, an early mail ballot, or if you were voting in person at the Board of Elections website, or excuse me, poll site, you just would not select a choice. Then ultimately, when the board certifies the election results, those blank ballots or voided ballots would be recorded.

One of the issues that has been raised by some of these progressives who are trying to create a more formal campaign to what they're calling leave it blank, is they want those results to be reported on Tuesday night, when the rest of the unofficial election night returns are reported. Normally, those results are not part of the unofficial election night returns, they are part of the certified results, but that doesn't come for about two weeks.

My colleague Andrew Giambrone, wrote a really great piece that's also on Gothamist, you can check it out, that talks about how they sent a demand letter to the state board of elections, asking them to report those blank ballots as part of the unofficial election night returns and are prepared to sue if they don't. We'll see what happens on that front.

The one thing to note is the state board of elections who's the target of their demand letter doesn't actually count most of the ballots, it's done at the local level. New York City will be tabulating the results for votes cast here in New York City.

It'll be interesting to see the next steps of that lawsuit, but a good reminder that those types of lawsuits can be very effective. If we flashback to 2020 when we were at the height of the pandemic, and there was an effort by the state board of elections to cancel the presidential primary, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang actually was responsible for suing in federal court and forcing that presidential primary to happen, even though similar to this situation, all the other candidates had suspended their campaigns.

Brian Lehrer: For people who may be wondering if that later reporting of the number of blank ballots is a way to protect Biden from embarrassment, is it? Is that a decision of the state Democratic Party or is this the way it's always done?

Brigid Bergin: I think that this is the way it's always done. Part of the issue is, these are nominating contests. This is not the election. When we have the ballots in November, there will be an option to write in candidates, but this is part of a party's nominating process, excuse me, and so it's dictated by the party rules and election law.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, it's weird that you can't write somebody in even in a presidential primary, since you can do it in just about every other kind of election. I think I don't know if it's most states, but certainly a lot of other states, you can write somebody in a presidential primary ballot, right?

Brigid Bergin: We certainly have seen that voters in other parts of the country have used their presidential primary ballots to express their opposition to the Biden administration's policy in Gaza, whether it's by writing in other candidates or as we saw, particularly in Michigan, the uncommitted movement.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. On that reporting late of the ballots that people leave blank, is that usually done that way or might that be an attempt to protect Biden from embarrassment until it's so many days after the New York primary that nobody pays attention to how many people may have done that?

Brigid Bergin: I think in part, we do know that our election results tend to take some time in New York. Those votes that are cast that don't have any vote on them are considered undervotes. Then there's the whole canvassing process to make sure that the votes have been scanned accurately. You could argue that potentially it is an effort to protect the president from embarrassment, but I think it also was part of the administrative procedures of the board of elections.

Brian Lehrer: Right. It's pretty funny, though, right? You would think that since the computers basically tabulate the votes from each machine, and then they're added together, and each precinct reports and then we have the totals, that they would see the number of blank ballots that get recorded by the machine as undervotes, just at the same time that they see the people who actually voted.

Brigid Bergin: Right. We will see if this movement decides to move forward and actually file a lawsuit if potentially, that changes how they report these results ahead of Tuesday night.

Brian Lehrer: The last thing. There is nothing else on the ballot, right, except the presidential primaries? The rest of the New York primaries like for Congress, and other things this year, that will be in June.

Brigid Bergin: That's right, Brian. If you like to vote, boy, is this a year for you, because there's a whole lot of opportunities to go out and vote this year. There'll be another set of primaries in June and of course, the general election in November.

Brian Lehrer: Brigid Bergin, WNYC, and Gothamist senior politics reporter. Brigid, thanks so much as always. Thanks for filling us in.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you.

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